One solution for the installation of long and multiple files has been to supply the program code in a universal format such as the ZIP package. However, this does NOT perform a true install and leaves the user with the problem of integrating the code into the operating system.
CASTENET from MARIMBA (http://www.marimba.com) consists of a platform specific application manager on a computer that downloads and installs client/server JAVA based code from transmitter sites on the Internet. This code is platform independent but usable only within a CASTENET environment. CASTENET then executes the client/server code in the CASTENET environment. Without CASTENET, the user has to establish a connection with the server and download the client/server code each time, the downloading can take several hours depending on the size of the application. CASTENET integrates the code only within the CASTENET environment and not within the user's operating system. A review of this system is given in WIRED (UK) November 1996.
Another installation solution is described on http://www.sbtech.org/jinstall.html and is concerned with extraction and convenient upgrading of JAVA archives on different platforms. However, this does not answer many of the needs of installing and in particular those related to the host platform.